Kelly Ayotte says she backs gun checks

Facing a wave of intense criticism and plunging poll numbers after opposing a bill to expand background checks on gun purchases, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte tried some damage control in an op-ed published Monday.

“Out of state special interests are running false ads attacking me and even lying about my efforts to prevent gun-related violence,” Ayotte, a Republican, wrote in the op-ed, published by Patch news sites in New Hampshire. “I want to set the record straight: I support effective background checks and in fact voted recently to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).”

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Outside groups are attacking Ayotte for voting against a compromise crafted by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). That proposal would’ve mandated background checks for sales at gun shows and on the internet.

“Some of my colleagues want to expand the broken background check system we have now,” Ayotte wrote. “In my view, we shouldn’t be expanding a flawed system. The focus should be on fixing the existing system, which criminals are flouting.”

Ayotte has been playing defense since casting her vote against Manchin-Toomey last month. Her poll numbers have sagged and two major gun control groups — Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions — have run ads in New Hampshire attacking her. The daughter of the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School also confronted Ayotte at a town hall in an episode that drew national media attention.

“In her op-ed Senator Ayotte says that she voted to improve the existing background check system but the bill she voted for (Grassley-Cruz) did just the opposite by narrowing the categories of mentally ill people who would be prohibited gun purchasers and potentially calling into question millions of names already in the system,” Mayors Against Illegal Guns Chairman John Feinblatt said in a statement. “Despite the Senator’s claim that the current background check system doesn’t work, it has blocked over two million dangerous people from buying guns.”